


No Matter How Sweet, No Matter How Brave

by Squeeb100



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Character Study, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Whump, Hurt Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Major Character Injury, Unrequited Love, Whump, can't believe I almost forgot my favorite tags, do I have a fixation with guilt? yes and it's called projection, or something? Viggo has a weird thing for Hiccup we all know it, semi-graphic depiction of injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22121362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squeeb100/pseuds/Squeeb100
Summary: Hiccup doesn't survive a battle on Wingmaiden Island. Viggo is left to cope with the way he feels at the realization that someone like Hiccup can die.Title from "The Sword and the Pen" by Regina Spektor
Relationships: (unrequited), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson, Viggo Grimborn/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III
Comments: 16
Kudos: 100





	No Matter How Sweet, No Matter How Brave

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about this and then I didn't stop thinking about it until I'd vomited 3000 words out. I've killed Toothless before but not Hiccup so here it is. I wasn't expecting the second half to be so long but Viggo just kept having emotions and snooping and who am I to keep him from that?
> 
> "The Sword and the Pen" by Regina Spektor is recommended listening if you want more feels about this.

After a battle more grueling than expected, he has finally separated the fledgling Razorwhip from its woman. The creature is shrieking and calling out for the Wingmaiden’s crumpled form, tail whipping and whizzing through the air as Viggo’s hunter holds it by the neck at arm’s length.

“Step on that tail,” he advises the man coolly. “It can slice through iron.”

The hunter only stands there helplessly, trying his best to avoid one of nature’s deadliest weapons as the little dragon’s calls inevitably attract hostile female dragons. Wingmaiden Island is not an ideal battleground for men, not at this time of year, but the female Razorwhips have been instrumental in occupying the Dragon Riders (the only pair of females, from Viggo’s observation, is Hofferson and her Nadder, and they stick close to the rest of the team).

Viggo has only just turned on his heel to help the oafish man when he hears a dragon call. It sounds like the Night Fury, though it’s not a call he’s ever heard from it before; this is the anguished cry of a dragon separated from its mate or hatchling—panicked, pained, furious.

_Hiccup._

“Shut that thing up before the nesting females hear,” Viggo advises his hunter tersely. “If they find a male on their island they will kill him.” And he turns and runs, as fast as he can, in the direction of the call.

His heart is in his throat as he pounds past the treeline and onto the beach, blankly observing the ground littered with his unluckier hunters. A gambit, a worthy loss of life. He will have someone return for the survivors later. They are not Viggo’s concern.

The Night Fury calls again, desperate; Viggo is closer to it now, and he begins to hear voices as he draws near. There is a little gathering in a cluster of sea-worn rocks and he recognizes it immediately as the Dragon Riders and their mounts. Tangent to the group, stretching out into the sand, there’s a deep furrow—a crash landing.

The Night Fury is there but Viggo cannot see Hiccup.

It is all he can do not to run up, to see what has _happened,_ but he knows better. The Riders and Dragons would kill him before he got a word in edgewise, no matter how desperate or earnest he appeared; so he forces himself to slow, to choose his path wisely, and tucks himself behind a stone. The Riders’ voices are hushed and frantic, and as Viggo peers around the edge of the boulder, he sees why.

In the center of the cluster, half-sitting with his head against Hofferson’s chest, is Hiccup. He’s slumped against her, arms tight around his stomach as he tries to curl into himself. His mouth is half open in a little expression of shock and agony, and the Night Fury is pacing and nudging its rider and making desperate, frightened sounds.

There is blood everywhere.

“No,” Viggo whispers.

The Gronckle rider, a hulking beast of a man with very little emotional fortitude, is kneeling beside the pair and trying to coerce Hiccup’s arms away from his middle.

“Please, Hiccup, I have to look at it,” he’s saying, and his beefy arms are hovering around anxiously until Hofferson takes Hiccup’s bloody hands and gently but forcefully guides them away from the injury.

“Oh, _gods,”_ the Gronckle rider says, a hand flying to his mouth, and Viggo’s heart leaps. What does he see, what has happened? He edges around the stone quietly, trying to find a better vantage point as the riders go on panicking.

“Well, _do_ something!” One of the male riders cries, voice crackling with panic. “Stop the bleeding, Fishface, he’s gonna die on you!”

“Shut up, Snotlout!” Hofferson snaps. Viggo hears Hiccup say something, too quiet to quite make out the words, and Hofferson’s voice sweetens. “You’re okay. We’ve got you, try to relax.” Her voice, soothing as she’s trying to be, is strained. Hiccup is likely not okay.

Viggo rounds the boulder from a new angle and his heart drops.

With Hiccup’s bloody arms pulled away from his middle, the problem is all too clear. He’s been all but gutted, no doubt by a Razorwhip; the slash runs from hip to chest, and his leather armor is gaping. He is wide open and still bleeding, and Viggo has seen enough injuries to know that they have mere minutes to stop it.

“Should we take him to Gothi?” the male twin asks, leaning in as much as he can without being directly in the way. He and his sister are pressed together, arms and hands wound up in each other. Seeking comfort.

“He’d bleed out _faster,_ use your brain!” Hofferson rounds on him like a territorial Nadder. She’s moved one of her hands to Hiccup’s hair and is carding her fingers through it gently. The Gronckle rider has procured a length of cloth from his saddlebag and is pressing it against Hiccup’s middle; Hiccup grimaces and rolls his head back into Hofferson’s chest. His breathing is fast and shallow and he’s white as a sheet.

The Night Fury is pacing around, still, occasionally trying to nudge its head in between the cloth and its master. It listens when it is told off, eventually lying down opposite the Gronckle rider and leaning part of its face against Hiccup’s chest.

“It’s alright, bud,” Hiccup says, weakly enough that Viggo practically has to read his lips to understand him. Hofferson releases his arms and he loops them around the great beast’s head, one palm stroking absently over the dragon’s brow. Hofferson puts her other hand to Hiccup’s face and runs her thumb over his cheekbone in a gesture small and intimate enough to stir venom in Viggo.

“It’s not working!” The Gronckle rider says, panicky. Hiccup’s blood is leaching into the cloth at an alarming rate, and no matter how hard the young scholar-cum-medic leans into his leader he cannot stop it from coming.

“That’s alright,” Hiccup murmurs, looking at his friend steadily. Viggo watches his throat work a bit between short gasps. “I’m sorry. That was dumb of me.”

“It’s _not_ alright!” Hofferson shouts, just as the dark-haired rider cries “You’ll be okay!”

“Hiccup, you have to _fight it!”_ The female twin urges him.

Hiccup shakes his head. It’s a small movement but something in Viggo breaks for it in a way he’s never experienced before.

“Can I lie down?” Hiccup asks, and the Riders pause collectively before they’re nodding and murmuring gently to him. The Gronckle rider pulls Hiccup’s hips gently along the ground while Hofferson helps him slide down to rest his head in her lap.

“Are you comfortable?” The Gronckle rider asks softly.

“I’m cold,” Hiccup says, sounding dazed. The Night Fury, which had lifted its head away to help Hiccup reposition, lays its head down flat on its master’s chest. Its neck is angled across his stomach and Viggo can see it vibrate, can hear a rumble as the thing begins to _purr._ Hiccup clings to the giant head like a lifeline.

“You okay?” Hofferson asks, softening in a way which seems uncharacteristic. She’s running her hands through Hiccup’s hair again. The way she massages his scalp looks practiced.

“Mhm.” Hiccup is breathing far too quickly and shivering violently, his body trying to save him even as he’s drained out into the sand. He closes his eyes for a moment, comforted by Hofferson and the dragon, before shaking himself awake. “I love you guys,” he says, and it’s so _earnest._

“Uh-huh,” that dark-haired rider chokes out, tears streaming down his face.

“We love you too, H,” the male twin says with conviction. His twin nods. They are both crying.

“Astrid.” Hiccup tilts his head back to make eye contact with Hofferson. His throat works again and he licks his lips. “Love you. I’m sorry, I promised—”

“I love you,” Hofferson whispers, and leans down. Hiccup lifts his head with great effort and their lips meet for a moment before he falls back with a hiss. “Don’t be sorry.”

“You’re in charge. I want you in charge,” Hiccup says, eyes searching her face desperately. He’s stopped shivering; Viggo suspects that it is not because he has warmed up, but because his body has run out of energy.

“Okay, babe.” Tears are streaming down Hofferson’s face, and Viggo wouldn’t have thought it possible if he couldn’t feel the pressure behind his eyes, the tightness in his throat.

“And Toothless, he, I have the blueprints for the automatic tail. In my room.” Hiccup is struggling to talk, to think. “Please,” he says, and the Gronckle rider understands what he means.

“Consider it done,” he smiles.

“Please tell Dad I love him.” Hiccup breathes out roughly.

“I will,” Hofferson promises.

Hiccup curls into his dragon. Viggo sees his lips move against its head, sharing some quiet secret. The dragon moans desperately and presses closer to its rider. “I love you,” Hiccup says, petting the dragon’s head. This is tenderness like Viggo has never seen, and for a moment, as Hiccup’s hand begins to slow, he wishes there was something he could do. “I love you,” Hiccup whispers, the words clear on his lips. “I’m sorry.” Then he goes still, save for the quick rise and fall of his chest.

Hofferson guides his head back gently into her lap. His eyes are closed. He breathes a few times, raggedly, before falling silent.

Viggo holds his breath for an eternity of silence.

Then the Night Fury shrieks out a mourning call and Hofferson collapses over Hiccup’s body, a harsh scream tearing itself from her strong little body. A sound of terrible mourning rises from the gathered dragons and riders, and if a little choked-off sound escapes Viggo, it is drowned by their grief.

Hiccup has gone.

***

It is near midnight when Viggo’s ship runs aground. A Night Terror calls, alerting its flock, and they take to the air, chattering and screaming.

It has been a moon since a human set foot on this island.

Viggo ties his ship down silently before setting off toward the center of the island, trudging up a path he can envision Hiccup and the riders walking day in and day out. He passes an abandoned sentry station and a Terrible Terror spooks out of it.

Though Viggo hasn’t seen hide nor hair of the Dragon Riders since they took Hiccup’s body back to Berk, he hasn’t been able to get the boy out of his mind. It is worse than usual. Where normally his thoughts would be overrun with schemes and plays, ideas on how to outsmart his rival, on that fierce intelligence in his lovely eyes or the determination in the set of his clean jaw or his dexterous fingers or his scathing wit, Viggo is now constantly called to the image of Hiccup, dying. Hiccup, dead. Of the furrow in the ground where he and his dragon must have crashed, after the Razorwhip got to them. Of the fear and pain and resignation in the set of his brow. Of his blood, ruby red and gushing out, his body emptying into the sand.

Most of all, what had shocked Viggo was how _little_ Hiccup looked without that massive personality inhabiting his smallish body. And how young and frightened he had been, pleading _please tell Dad I love him._

For all he had managed to be, Hiccup was still more boy than man.

The Dragon Riders’ abandoned base is charming. Each rider had their own hut, built and decorated where and how they had desired. There really were just the six of them, Viggo realizes upon inspecting their living space. All his wit and all his power and Viggo had been consistently challenged by a band of six idealistic teenagers.

Well. Five idealistic teenagers and _Hiccup,_ who was a greater man than most Viggo has known. He’d spent ages thinking on how and why that was, that this person above all others _shone_ to him, and he’d only recently realized what it was. Hiccup was a player in Viggo’s game, not just a pawn. A _player,_ in a way others could only fake.

Viggo recognizes the hut as Hiccup’s by the layout. There is a loft, an area where Hiccup and the dragon slept, based on the arrangement of bed and stone slab. The rest of the hut is dedicated to storing and planning and building things. On the workbench, thinly veiled in dust, lies a new model of that flaming sword Hiccup carried around. Longer and lighter, half-finished. The desk is littered with blueprints and scribbled drawings and notes, little things like _bevel this_ and _45 degrees worked best; test further_ and _this heats up too much._ One of the blueprints looks to be for a set of wings, intended for use by a human. Viggo’s lips quirk at that.

There is a leatherbound book on the desk as well; Viggo opens it to sketches of the Night Fury, lines heavy but flowing. Viggo recognizes the creature only for its shape; it looks nothing like the beast he’s familiar with. There is love in the way this creature is drawn. Something about the lift of its eyes and the set of its mouth make it abundantly clear that _Hiccup_ drew this, and that he did so with skill and passion unmatched.

Between the sketches is a small journal entry: _Had the hiccups bad today. Toothless endlessly amused; I didn’t realize he knew what my name meant. He amazes me every day._

Viggo tears his eyes away from the writing and flips the pages somewhat aggressively, passing sketches of dragons and the riders and people he doesn’t recognize and infinite scribbled designs for _things._ Another page catches his eye and Viggo lingers. On this page Hiccup has drawn the smooth curve of a woman’s naked back, gliding up into a pair of hands deftly braiding loose hair. It is Hofferson, _Astrid,_ and she’s glancing over her shoulder with a bemused expression. Directly beside this drawing is another, this one of Astrid squared up, brandishing an axe and ready for battle. Furious and glorious and idealized.

On the opposite page is a drawing which Viggo slowly recognizes as himself, drawn from memory. It is harsh, scribbled out in a rush of emotion, and the slightly-too-menacing portrait is accompanied by the words _don’t like the way he looks at me._

Viggo throws the book across the room in a sudden swell of rage and it bounces off a chest in the corner.

“What did you have to hide?” he wonders aloud as his heart slows its mad rush. He approaches the chest to find it unlocked and filled with a slightly alarming mix of prosthetic fins and legs. He removes a fin and examines it, fascinated by the hand stitching. He flexes it, admiring how the joints move. On the dragon, it was connected to a foot pedal; he had seen Hiccup working it, had watched him stop to think for a fraction of a second before executing some complex move. He loved that about Hiccup, that one could see him thinking and know that momentarily something ingenious would happen.

That all-too-familiar emotion, raw and unpleasant, wells up in Viggo’s chest. He shuts the trunk and picks up the journal, setting it gently on the desk where it belongs. The hut is suddenly too much for him and he turns on his heel and stalks away along one of the high bridges.

Before Hiccup, Viggo had never felt this. It is new and it is uncomfortable and he does not know what to do to convince it to leave. This must be guilt, though he’s felt that before. He has mourned a plan gone awry and this is not that either.

It has torn at him since Hiccup’s death a moon ago and he wants it _gone._

He finds himself before the island’s central building. “Clubhouse,” it is labeled, as if Viggo needs any more reminding that its builders were practically children. It is cozy inside, clearly intended as a gathering place, and he can imagine that ragtag band of Dragon Riders gathered around a meal or a game.

Sitting on the central table is a Maces and Talons figure, and Viggo’s heart picks up again when he sees a written note beside it. Unfortunately, he begins to read it before the _drama_ of the image fully sets in.

_Plese take gud care of him,_ is scribbled out in unfamiliar script.

_This is a game piece,_ is the reply, in Hiccup’s now-familiar handwriting.

_Dont tell him hes sensitiv,_ a third writer replies.

_Im sensitive,_ the first agrees. _H your terrible at names help me name him. Consedering Chicken Jr Hiccup II or Moon Unit what do you think_

_Can we please move this off the dining table,_ someone new writes, in small fine loops.

_Moon Unit,_ in Hiccup’s handwriting, is the final entry.

Viggo arches an eyebrow and sets the paper down, amused by the domesticity of the conversation. And how _frivolous_ it is. He can imagine the riders passing through the clubhouse throughout the day, pausing for a moment to indulge each others’ games. Running under the strange fondness he feels, however, is another wave of that same choking emotion he’s tried helplessly to rid himself of.

Viggo turns Moon Unit over in his hand. It’s the Chief, he recognizes, and glances around for the rest of the set. _There._ On a table in the corner; Viggo approaches curiously, observing that someone was mid-game. It is telling that he has to walk himself through the game up to this point. He cannot tell if the defensive play is insane or ingenious.

Sitting beside the board is a scorecard. Each rider is listed, and each name is accompanied by a tally of their wins. Hiccup is far in the lead, with Astrid as an unsurprising second. Tuffnut and Ruffnut are the twins, Viggo assumes, and they are surprisingly doing nearly as well as Hofferson. There is no indication of who the current players were, but the offense is brutally vicious and the defense is conservative but devious.

“Yet you lost the chief,” he hums, curling his fingers around the piece. The sickening feeling sets in again, multiplying itself tenfold and crashing over him like a wave, and he lashes out, swiping the game board to the ground. The pieces clatter loudly in the eerie silence of the abandoned base and Viggo shouts. Screams.

“It’s your own fault, you fool!” he kicks the game board and it skids across the room. “You made every play of your own volition and you _lost._ ” He stomped down on a piece, feeling stone crack under his boot. _“_ It was inevitable.” Had Viggo thought Hiccup would hold up forever? Would be his rival for eternity? What a grand, glorious thought. But nobody had defeated Viggo in years. Hiccup was always going to lose.

Viggo doesn’t know why he came. Maybe he’d hoped that it would chase off whatever was haunting him, wipe Hiccup from his mind and restore life to the way it was _before._

He makes a sound which sounds like a sob and feels like dying, bending at the waist and bowing over with the intensity of it. He holds himself like this, trembling, for a few moments.

Then he straightens, pockets the chief, and turns to leave the spirits-forsaken island.

The game has ended.

**Author's Note:**

> All I do is hurt my favorite characters, eat hot chip and lie
> 
> I don't even like Viggo that much??? I'm just, in my own words, "fascinated with his fascination for Hiccup." Like seeing him fanboy over Hiccup in a creepy way feeds some terrible beast which lives inside me. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! Consider commenting or leaving me kudos, it literally makes my week
> 
> Have a lovely day!


End file.
